Topics

The number of Aboriginal children who have died from suspected suicide in Australia this year has climbed to seven and includes four girls from WA.

One of the girls was Perth’s Rochelle Pryor, 14, whose family this week shared their anguish over her death on January 10 in a story published in a national newspaper to raise awareness about the Aboriginal youth suicide crisis.

They said Rochelle’s father found her unconscious in her bedroom hours after she posted on social media that, “once I’m gone, the bullying and racism will stop”.

She died nine days later in Perth Children’s Hospital.

The girl told her sister she had been a victim of bullying and racism.

In the past few weeks a 12-year-old girl in South Hedland, a 14-year-old in the remote community of Frog Hollow, 800km east of Broome, and a WA girl in Queensland are also believed to have taken their own lives.

Suicide prevention researcher and critical response advocate Gerry Georgatos said there was a crisis and more than 50 of the estimated 180 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander suspected suicides in Australia last year were of children under the age of 17.

Mr Georgatos said enough research on indigenous suicide had been done and more funding was needed.

“What we don’t have is outreach,” he said. “People need on the ground support whether it’s remote living conditions or the urban masses.

“Nearly 100 per cent of suicide of first nations people are living below the poverty line.

“It’s a crisis we need to understand everything we should be doing is investing in programs that can be measurable for improving the life circumstance of others.”

Friends have set up a GoFundMe page to help the family cover the cost of Rochelle’s funeral.